


aftermath

by haetae



Series: wanderer from the steppe [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Family Feels, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 21:30:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16668655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haetae/pseuds/haetae
Summary: it takes three days for mongke qestir to wake up.it takes years for him to recover.





	aftermath

It’s slow and painful when he wakes.

Then he bolts upright, sweat prickling on his brow. His heart beats in jerky staccatos. Where is he? What happened―

Mongke holds his breath and blinks slowly.

This is… this is the old shaman’s yurt. No. No, that’s not possible. He should be out in the fields, dying. This is a vague afterlife of some kind. He’s not alive.

He places a hand over his chest―only to wince and finally notice the state of his hands.

They’re wrapped all the way to his wrists with bandages. He can feel the pain blindly cutting through his fingers, his palms, and a strange ache in his wrists. It feels as though a thousand needles have pricked through the skin of his hands and sandpaper has rubbed his wrists raw.

He blinks.

“Mongke?”

He tenses. Then, slowly, he looks up.

Medekghui stares back at him.

“Mongke,” they say slowly, as if approaching a feral animal, “do you know where you are?”

Mongke is silent for a few, long, tense moments. Then, he shifts.

Medekghui is by his side in an instant and Mongke squirms violently. This is a dream,  _this is a dream_ ―!

Old withered hands clasp his firmly, but not to the point of squeezing.

“Mongke.” Medekghui repeats sharply and the sound of his name on the old shaman’s lips makes his horns hurt for some reason. “Mongke, you are home. Mongke, you are in my yurt right now. Breathe.  _Breathe._ ”

He doesn’t even realize he’s hyperventilating until the Medekghui apparition places a hand over his mouth. Mongke struggles weakly, his body protesting each movement, until his chest stops rising and falling rapidly and he feels himself choking on his breath.

Medekghui moves their hand away from Mongke’s face and cups his face gently. There are bags upon bags underneath their pale eyes and that makes the inside of Mongke’s chest twist painfully.

“Is okay. Is okay, you are safe. You are safe. Breathe, slowly. In through your nose―that’s it―out through your mouth. Like that. One, two―there we go. Again. One, two. One, two.”

Bits and pieces of Mongke’s sanity start trickling back into his head. He slumps against the old shaman and doesn’t flinch when they carefully pull him into a loose hug.

“You have been through much.” they mumble with a crack in their steady voice.

Mongke feels like he’s dreaming, still. He has never heard his teacher talk like that at all. The Medekghui he knows is unflappable, strong, composed. Nothing ever riles them. Except… except he can feel the fragility in Medekghui’s frame now. Every shudder, every shiver makes Medekghui more vulnerable, more small.

He isn’t sure how to feel about that.

“Tea… cher…?” Mongke rasps uncertainly. There has to be a trick to this, right?

They pull away and give him a brief lookover.

“… Your parents will want to see you.” Medekghui mumbles quietly to themself. Almost reluctantly, they start to let go of him.

Suddenly Mongke is seized by irrational fear. He lurches forward and clings to Medekghui’s thin arms.

He shakes his head fiercely, too terrified to say anything except  _“stay”_  with his eyes. (Don’t leave him alone,  _don’t leave him alone_. He―he doesn’t want to be left alone again. He doesn’t want to see  _them_ again―!)

Medekghui stops.

Mongke blubbers and clings tighter. 

“Okay.” his teacher says quietly. There’s a strangely sad look in their eyes as they kneel on the rug beside Mongke’s bedroll. “Okay. I will call for them here.”

No, no―his parents are dead, the man told him so―

(His hands are shaking. The knife slips from his slippery, red fingers. He has to keep running,  _keep running!_  There is an angry roar behind him and he sprints faster than he ever sprinted in his life. He tastes blood. His chest and throat  _burn_. They’re gaining on him.  _They’re gaining on him―!_ )

He shivers and leans against Medekghui. Their presence is grounding, familiar. They tentatively curl their bony, knobby fingers in his hair and soothe him with a gentle prod of healing aether.

As soon as Mongke looks like he isn’t on the verge of another breakdown anymore, Medekghui cranes their head and calls, “Nergui! Batbayar!”

Mama and Papa burst into the yurt. And then their eyes fall upon his wheezing, shaking frame. Immediately they make a beeline straight towards him, scoop him up from the bedroll, and hug him tight in their arms.

He squeezes back fiercely, shakily. They feel real. They feel  _warm_. Everywhere hurts and his vision is blurry but, for the first time in days, he collapses in great, heaving sobs in his parents’ embrace.

He feels gentle fingers in his matted hair. He hears the comforting hum of his father’s timbre. They’re so warm and real and  _alive, alive, alive_. Mongke wails and wails and wails until his voice gives out and his stomach hurts from the force of his crying. It feels like the tears will never end, never end but his parents are here, they’re here, they’re really here, they came for him,  _they’re alive_.

“I’m so sorry,” Papa says, “I’m so sorry we’re late. We’re here now, we’re here. Papa is sorry. I am so sorry, my son.”

Mama doesn’t say anything but she’s shaking even more than Mongke and Mongke has to squeeze her to keep her steady, reassure himself that this isn’t a dream. He’s sure that his face is gross with tears and snot and drool but he doesn’t  _care_  because he is home and he is  _alive_  and  _safe_  with his family.

Then he feels himself being slowly picked up from the ground. He clings to Papa as Papa shifts his arms around Mongke more securely, tucking Mongke’s tail into the crook of his arm.

“He will need to be on a mild diet. Gods know what the Buduga did to him to make him like  _that_  but… I found no severed tendons. He had wounds on his hands and feet from the capture. Nothing more. And make sure he drinks water―he’s likely delirious from dehydration too.”

Medekghui’s droning, clinical voice washes over Mongke’s horns, familiar as the little creeks that feed into Azim Khaat. Cool and steady. This is the Medekghui he is most comfortable with―his shrewd teacher and the competent medic.

“Thank you, for saving our son.” Papa begins to say, but Mongke feels more than notices Mama leading him out of the yurt. Mongke can barely hear Medekghui’s grumbling anymore.

Mama gently brushes his bangs out of the way and presses a soft kiss to his brow.

“Sleep, little one.” she murmurs. “Is okay. We will be here.”

Mongke trusts Mama.

So he lets his heavy eyelids flutter shut and falls into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

He is home.

**Author's Note:**

> .... yeah so. that happened.
> 
> basically this was an exercise in cathartic writing so a lot of things here don't make a lot of sense. basically what happened was that mongke was captured by the buduga but managed to escape and return to his tribe. (kinda want to expand a little more on that but not sure...)
> 
> please let know what you think and give a comment/kudos if you enjoyed reading this!


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